Tag: research

When Apple unveiled the iPhone X last year, it was on a clear mission to present the world with the smartphone of the future – albeit at a hefty price tag. Although the phone received widespread acclaim from tech pundits and diehard Apple fans, that’s not to say that it’s been a huge success across […]Read More…iDrop News

Toyota's autonomous vehicle dreams are too big to contain, so it's establishing a new company to speed up its technology's development. The automaker has teamed up with fellow Japanese entities Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. and Denso Corporation to form the…Engadget RSS Feed

How do you measure the health of online interactions? Twitter is determined to find out.

Are the conversations that people have on Twitter “healthy”? The company plans to figure that out.

That’s according to a series of tweets sent Thursday by CEO Jack Dorsey, who first issued a pseudo apology for the kinds of aggressive and abusive content that Twitter has become known for.

“We have witnessed abuse, harassment, troll armies, manipulation through bots and human-coordination, misinformation campaigns, and increasingly divisive echo chambers,” Dorsey wrote. “We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough.”

So now Twitter has a new plan: It wants to measure the “health” of conversations on Twitter, something that Facebook is trying to do as well.

We have witnessed abuse, harassment, troll armies, manipulation through bots and human-coordination, misinformation campaigns, and increasingly divisive echo chambers. We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough.

“If you want to improve something, you have to be able to measure it,” Dorsey continued. “The human body has a number of indicators of overall health, some very simple, like internal temperature. We know how to measure it, and we know some methods to bring it back in balance.”

It’s not clear how you measure the health of a human interaction (or a human-to-bot interaction), but Dorsey intends to find out. He mentioned Cortico, a nonprofit that proclaims a mission on its website to “foster a healthy public sphere,” as an organization that is inspiring Twitter’s work. Specifically, Dorsey mentioned four “indicators” that Twitter could use for measuring the health of conversations. Cortico described them like this on its website:

Shared Attention: Is there overlap in what we are talking about?

Shared Reality: Are we using the same facts?

Variety: Are we exposed to different opinions grounded in shared reality?

Receptivity: Are we open, civil, and listening to different opinions?

Twitter also issued an RFP — a request for proposal — to get more ideas from others outside the company.

If you want to improve something, you have to be able to measure it. The human body has a number of indicators of overall health, some very simple, like internal temperature. We know how to measure it, and we know some methods to bring it back in balance.

“We simply can’t and don’t want to do this alone. So we’re seeking help by opening up an RFP process to cast the widest net possible for great ideas and implementations,” Dorsey tweeted.

For years, Twitter has served as a home for some of the nastier internet users — a place where online harassment and bullying and conflict thrived, thanks in part to Twitter’s commitment to free speech and its willingness to allow anonymous users.

Now it’s taking an interesting step to try and quantify the “health” of its own product.

It all seems to stem from the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, in which we learned that Russian bots used Twitter to try and sow discord among voters. Ever since Donald Trump was elected and social networks were found to be somewhat responsible, tech companies have been grappling with their broader role in society.

Twitter’s move on Thursday feels like an olive branch of sorts for politicians in D.C. There has been speculation ever since the election that Congress may try and regulate social media companies that were caught sleeping at the wheel. This is a way for Twitter to show everyone that it’s proactively trying to improve discourse on its platform.

If you want to know how much life you’ll get out of your new Apple product, an analyst for Asymco has estimated the average life of your next device. Researcher Horace Dedlu determined lifespan by using the number of active devices and the cumulative total of products sold. The former number, revealed during Apple’s Q1 financial call last month, has only been disclosed once before. When you subtract the number of active devices from the total number sold, the remaining number is the amount of products that have been retired in a quarter. Dedlu contends that figuring the average lifespan…

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today released research that shows how consumers are creating their own “personal prime times”—points of highly concentrated engagement throughout the day, which offer valuable advertising opportunities across a range of content verticals and digital screens.

Entitled “Personal Prime Time,” the report demonstrates that brands should no longer expect a single, universal moment of greatest engagement. While audience size might shift between different times of day, every daypart is ripe for meaningful consumer connections.

The study looks at the consumer journey through the lens of seven diverse content types—Episodic Shows, Music, News, Podcasts, Short Videos, Social Media, and Weather. In each case, the report acknowledges audience density in specific dayparts, but then provides findings to reveal that “traditional reach” metrics miss the consumer perspective on the “need state” that drives them to turn to content at any given time. Diving in further, the research begins to take a range of consumer attributes (e.g., age, parental status) and device usage into account, to allow for better targeting across dayparts and platforms.

For example, while majorities of both Millennials and Boomers check social media regularly, the research identifies key differences between these two generations:

82% of Millennials report that they check social media during various dayparts or all day long, while 66% of Boomers report the same

The top “need states” driving Millennials to check social media are to “pass the time” and “be entertained,” versus Boomers are looking to “connect with others”

Device choice differs as well, with Millennials preferring mobile devices and Boomers opting to check social media on their computers

“In the age of ‘big data’ it makes no sense for advertisers to place their focus solely on big numbers, when they can take advantage of insights that can help them pinpoint the right customer, the right way, at the right time,” said Anna Bager, Executive Vice President, Industry Initiatives, IAB. “This report only scratches the surface of what contexts, drivers, and modes will lead to optimal brand engagement—and we plan to delve even further to shine a spotlight on opportunities for marketers and publishers.”

“Personal Prime Time” was released at “IAB and dmexco @ Mobile World Congress” and is available for download at https://www.iab.com/personal-prime-time.

Evaluating Europa

Jupiter’s moon Europa is a hotbed of astrobiological interest. Below its icy crust is a deep ocean of liquid water, kept warm by energy from Jupiter’s gravitational interactions with the moon. While NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are planning for a 2025 mission to evaluate the potential for life on Europa up close, Brazilian researchers linked to the University of São Paulo (USP) have developed a model that uses similar environments on Earth to evaluate how habitable the moon may be for microbial life.

Europa is an icy candidate for identifying life in the universe. Image Credit: NASA

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, looked at the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa. This very deep mine is leaking water full of radioactive uranium. The uranium’s presence breaks down water molecules into highly reactive free radicals, which then dissolves the surrounding rocks and releases sulfate. The researchers found that the bacteria could use that sulfate to create energy.

“This is the first time an ecosystem has been found to survive directly on the basis of nuclear energy,” said Douglas Galante, the study coordinator, in a press release.

By this method, the bacteria are able to survive without sunlight. Galante’s team says that the Mponeng mine is an analog for what the bottom of Europa’s ocean may look like.

Locating Life

Not only does Europa likely have about twice as much water as Earth; many think that this ocean is more Earth-like than originally expected. Galante explained in the press release that, because Europa’s ocean bed is similar to that of an early Earth, “studying Europa today is to some extent like looking back at our own planet in the past.”

Understanding the conditions in which organisms can evolve and survive will help to support the 2025 mission to Europa. This expedition, dubbed the Joint Europa Mission (JEM), will hopefully use this advancing knowledge to fulfill its mission of locating biosignatures of life on Europa.

While the JEM is years away, researchers can use this information begin to predict what life may be found. From this study, it seems as though microscopic organisms, if found, would likely be extremophiles. As this parallel between early Earth and Europa becomes clearer, this work will also serve to expand our understanding of how life can originate in the universe, and what is truly possible.

New research conducted by Solace indicates a lack of interest in driverless cars even from those currently enjoying connected technologies in their vehicle.

Drivers of connected cars are often seen to be early adopters, but it seems automotive manufacturers will have a hard time selling self-driving vehicles even to those at the cutting edge of technology.

More than half (57%) of the respondents in Solace’s research said they would not buy a self-driving car, even if they were reasonably priced.

Almost two-thirds (62%) believe the connected car technologies available in their current vehicles allow them to drive safer — somethingresearch backs up. Most of these cars offer assistive or semi-autonomous features rather than full self-driving capabilities.

Shawn McAllister, CTO of Solace, says:

"The automotive industry is focused on bringing self-driving cars to the mass market, but our survey showed that connected car drivers of all ages just aren't ready to hand over the wheel.

While advancements in autonomous vehicle technologies are incredibly exciting, it's important to keep an understanding of the consumer front and center. We hope our survey will help in this regard."

Solace’s findings match similar research (PDF) indicating the public’s wariness of giving up control to self-driving cars. Interestingly, older drivers appear to be more receptive to autonomous technologies than younger generations.

Almost half (46%) of millennials ages 18-25 would not trust their car to automatically react to driving conditions, whereas only a third of drivers 65 or older felt that way.

The report, which identifies trends in mobile advertising, found that mobile private marketplaces (PMPs) monetized impression volume increased by 37 percent year-over-year (YOY) in Q4 2017, adding to a long growth streak for mobile PMPs now spanning eight consecutive quarters.

The upswing for mobile PMPs is attributed to major marketers continuing to increase spend through programmatic channels. PMPs offer robust options for advertisers to gain access to premium inventory coupled with safeguards for ad fraud and brand risk, amid growing concerns about quality, viewability and transparency.

For publishers, PMPs provide more control over their inventory and partnership with buyers. As a result, mobile PMP eCPMs globally in 2017 were priced at a 155 percent premium, compared to those paid for the average mobile open exchange impression.

“We have seen a profound shift towards supply chain integrity and quality in 2017,” explained Rajeev Goel, co-founder and CEO of PubMatic. “We expect this trend towards quality and programmatic direct to continue in 2018 as advertisers increasingly demand higher standards for transacting. As an industry, we need to continue our efforts in giving buyers access to highly-engaged mobile audiences in a brand safe environment while providing sellers greater visibility and control.”

To check out the full Q4 2017 Quarterly Mobile Index report, click here.

ABI Research projects that revenues from IoT identity and management are heading to hit the $ 21.5 billion benchmark by 2022, driven by IoT platform services together with security, cryptography, digital certificate management and data exchange services.

According to predictions put forward by the advisory firm in its report “​Thing Identity and Management Services”, IDoT (Identity of Things) services will realise robust growth over the next five years driven primarily by the industrial, manufacturing, and automotive industries.

Although some industries are not so up-to-date in terms of security, vendors in the IoT market are finally making investment moves in encryption and device certificate management. Some of the leading verticals that are eating up over 60% of the total global revenues include aftermarket telematics, fleet management, OEM telematics, metering, home security, and automation.

Elsewhere, a BCC Research report projected that the value of the global IoT networking solutions market is anticipated to reach $ 1 trillion by 2022 at a CAGR of 21.6%. The report titled “Internet of Things (IoT) Networks: Technologies and Global Markets to 2022” highlighted that the Asia Pacific’s IoT networking solutions market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 27.6% through 2022, followed by Europe with a CAGR of 23.8% and market share of 31.3%.

Scientists working at one of Russia’s top-secret nuclear facilities have been arrested by state police for allegedly trying to use the site’s powerful research computers to mine cryptocurrencies.

According to reports from BBC News and Agence France-Presse, the incident took place at the Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov, one of a number of “closed cities” created by the Soviet Union solely for the purpose of nuclear research. These cities are off-limits to travelers and aren’t even marked on Russian maps. A spokesperson for the facility, Tatiana Zalesskaya, told the Interfax news agency that several researchers had been detained after making “an attempt to use the work computing facilities for personal ends, including for so-called…